The Codex Lacrimae

by A. J. Carlisle

  “This is going to be so exciting.” Genevieve continued in a hiss. “I love adventures! Are we really going to the wharves at night?”

  “After losing these dresses,” Clarinda clarified. “Alex brought our clothes to one of the guard houses on the way.”

  The worshipers began moving into the nave and side aisles, some milling about to converse with friends, but most walking toward the many exits of the great church.

  Clarinda remained standing with her head bowed and hands clasped before her face, wanting to say a final prayer for her father.

  Alexander, the eldest of Genevieve’s brothers leaned on the polished wood of the pew and hissed quietly to Clarinda. The sound got her attention, and she looked at him.

  “We’ll wait outside, Clare,” Alex smiled as he whispered. “The younger kids know what we’re planning.”

  “That’s fine. I only need another moment.” Clarinda replied, and again bowed her head. Genevieve and her family departed from Clarinda’s view, and she exhaled deeply in relief when they were gone.

  Clarinda’s thoughts drifted back to her father.

  A few days after their discussion in the captain’s cabin, and the night before the Maritina made landfall in Constantinople, Angelo had joined Clarinda on the main deck as she watched the moon reflecting on the sea.

  The illumination was so bright that they’d decided to keep sailing later than usual. Still concerned about her father, Clarinda took watch at the helm to relax, but that night there was no pleasure in the routine activity. She ceded control of the wheel to the regular navigator, Pasquale, and moved to the starboard rail.

  Then Clarinda became mesmerized by the gently lapping motions of the water against the wood of the hull, by the slight flap of the sails high above her, and by the muffled sounds of the crew playing a drinking game in the galley below; all the noises gave her a comfortable, secure feeling that she yearned to keep for the rest of her life.

  Nowhere in the world was she so fulfilled as when she was at sea, and to no one in the world was she more devoted at seventeen years of age than her father.

  Yet, Angelo had been acting strangely on this voyage. He kept to his cabin more often than usual, and the few times he’d appeared on deck, his eyes were bleary and red, effects either of too much drink or exhaustion. Clarinda knew that something must be deeply bothering him, but she had her own concerns and wanted to give him privacy.

  She herself had been having a strange dream recently, a recurring vision of a broad subterranean pool, whose slight ripples shifted in rainbow colors across the water’s calm surface.

  In this dream, however, the beauty of the pool was marred by the startling sight of a head floating in the air above it!

  No body was attached to the man’s face, and he shouted something at two cloaked women who were battling with a man in a black robe that had a boldly embroidered white-cross upon the chest. Just in the shallows of the rainbow waters, another man (clad in similar black robes to the first), knelt over a third cloaked woman who lay limply in his outstretched arms, her body in an awkward, broken, and seemingly dead position that sprawled half submerged in the pool.

  Clarinda watched from a shadowed recess in the cave, and one of the women, grappling with the viciously fighting man, broke away from the battle to move toward her, extending a hand in a gesture of welcome or plea for help.

  Then, Clarinda’s attention focused on the second dark-robed man. After laying the dead woman gently aside, he sprang upward toward the other robed man and drew a sword with such speed that it frightened Clarinda even though she wasn’t the knight’s apparent target. When he came to his full height, the pool’s lights revealed the second man to be a gorgeous youth, gigantic in stature, and close to her in age. She’d become increasingly attracted to him after weeks and weeks of the same dream (albeit from afar, for they’d never spoken to each other).

  That young man sloshed quickly through the shallow pool and was about to strike the aggressive killer when everything disappeared in a blaze of fire that ignited the waters and dreamscape into exploding colors.

  Inevitably, Clarinda would awaken in her own bed, sweating and greatly confused, but so intrigued by this handsome young man who tried to save the two surviving women from their nightmarish assailant.

  Now, Clarinda wasn’t as religious as her father would prefer, but the consistency and repetitive nature of this dream made her think of the supernatural.

  Trying to understand the vision, her thoughts repeatedly returned to the two mysterious chests that her father had tried to hide from her. In the dream, the caskets lay on the sandy beach beside the wailing women. Each time before awakening, Clarinda’s final sight was of the chests, as if within them were the answers to the mystery of the women, floating head, black-robed warriors, and the colorful pool.

  A month ago, having given control of the Maritina to Pasquale the last night before the small fleet made shore in Constantinople, Clarinda was wondering how she might peek into those chests without her father’s knowledge. Then she realized with a start that he was standing on the deck beside her.

  “I realize that things have been difficult these past couple weeks, mia figlia,” Angelo said without preamble.

  He leaned forward on the railing of the deck, sharing her view of the moon. “And things are going to get worse once we reach Constantinople. Forget about our plans for taking the Viator to Antioch, or even splitting up the fleet. It won’t work.”

  “Padre, qual è il problema ? Can’t you tell me?”

  “I’ve made a mistake, Clarinda. I need to somehow make amends before all is lost.”

  “Before all is lost? Do you mean these shipments, or everything?”

  “Everything, I think. They’ll have it no other way if they don’t get what they want.”

  “Who? Our creditors?” Clarinda pressed. “But, we’re fine. We can pay the crew, and even divert part of our profits to do maintenance work at the glass factory over the summer. Madre would have loved that, and you’ll enjoy getting off the ship for a while. I spoke with Zio Verrocchio. He said he’s spoken with the Genoese, that they’ve extended the loans so we’ll make it to end of the season —”

  “God, Verrocchio!” Her father groaned. “I feel as if my bad luck began with… . Ah, no, that’s not charitable. Would that he hadn’t come back two years ago. Clarinda, your uncle Verrocchio...he talks as if he knows everything, but he doesn’t know about certain things. Things I’ve agreed to.”

  Clarinda smiled. “Come, now, Padre — you can’t be mysterious. Not around me. What have you done that’s so bad? It can’t be smuggling. There aren’t many places to hide things on this ship, especially since I oversaw the lading of inventory. We’ve got everything listed on the manifest. I mean, except for the precious items and those crates in your cabin. The amber and silver from Milan are a separate cargo, correct?”

  “Sì, Clare, but —”

  She didn’t like the look on his face, so she kept speaking, for some reason apprehensive about what he was about to tell her. “And the Egyptian fritware, the spices...even those amber pieces, they’re going to be taken care of by Pasquale. He’s promised that some traders in Constantinople can get them to the Baltic Sea by next summer —”

  “Mio Cara, basta ! Enough. I’m talking about a different consignment. Verrocchio knows the people I dealt with, but he knows nothing about this particular deal. It appears neither on the manifest from Venice, nor on the other ones we drafted three months ago in Milan.”

  “You made another deal, then? Before we left Venice?”

  “Sì.” Angelo finally turned toward Clarinda, his face a waxen shape upon which the moonlight carved shadows with each nervous movement he made. “Do you remember the Templar, Evremar of Choques?”

  “The Grand Master of Caesarea?”

  “Sì. I made a deal with two of his associates, men whom Verrocchio said I should speak with. I received what I thought was a letter-of-exchange just bef
ore we departed Venice. A letter-of-exchange that came with the largest promissory note I’d ever seen.”

  “He mentioned nothing of this to me. Neither of you mentioned this to me.”

  “Verrocchio knows some...shady characters, and I certainly wasn’t going to bring you to the part of town where they wanted to meet.”

  “How many other side arrangements have you been making, Padre ? We spoke of this, and you promised. I thought that we were partners, just as you and Madre used to —”

  “Clarinda, basta. Basta. We are partners, but I deal with Verrocchio differently than with you. He helps us, but he is not us. Capisce ? He was in Genoa for many years. There’s much about him, about his friends...well, much about the way he does things that I disapprove. I’ll not have you touched by that world. Capisce ?”

  “Si, Padre, si. Grazie. Go on.”

  “It was a bad tavern, Il marinaio ferito, The Wounded Sailor. Two men met me for a drink, saying that they’d heard through Verrocchio that we were sailing to the Levant on the next tide.”

  “Wait — why did Verrocchio arrange this meeting, then not accompany you to it?”

  “He’s been having those headaches, the ones that cloud his sight. He hasn’t told you, but they’ve been worsening the past year, so much so that he sometimes can’t get out of bed.”

  “I thought he was just drunk,” Clarinda muttered.

  “He drinks to fight the nightmares... basta, basta. Your uncle is your uncle. I must tell you this...I myself find that I’m having trouble sleeping, and I must tell you this. As I said, these two men, they carried with them a promissory note that would pay for a full year’s trading, if the obligations were fulfilled. Then the agent...Morpeth, I think his name was. He showed me the two caskets, saying that Evremar of Choques was willing to pay a bonus amount of half again that note when we reached Caesarea with the cargo.”

  Clarinda stared at her father. “I knew about the caskets, but what are these letters of exchange? What kind of deal is going on between Caesarea and Venice?”

  “A devil’s bargain, I think,” Angelo muttered. “It’s not just between those two cities, mia figlia. Verrocchio’s in deep with the Genoese, and when we were drinking, he once mentioned Sicily and the papacy.”

  “A lot of players,” Clarinda observed, but then got to the main point that was bothering her. “Father, what’s in those caskets? Can’t you tell me? No?” She took a moment to look at the sea. “This is unlike you. We don’t need money made in a suspicious way, and,” she chuckled, “it’s naive to think that if Verrocchio arranged the meeting, he didn’t talk to those men afterwards to see what arrangements you made.”

  Angelo, too, watched the water, then laughed abruptly and shook his head.

  “I fear you’re correct. I didn’t want to say it to myself, but I suppose... si, he must know. He must’ve known even before we left, and he let us go without saying a word. I pay for that now. I pay dearly. I think he’s given me his nightmares, Clarinda, passed them along like a plague. Ah...I feel old.” He turned to look earnestly at his daughter, paused, then continued. “Verrocchio’s not the only one troubled by nightmares. I’ve been having terrible dreams, too, Bambina. Perhaps this problem runs in the family, eh? Be thankful that they do not bother you as they do my brother and me. I arise every morning feeling as if my sleeping hours are more tiresome than the waking ones.”

  Angelo looked left and right, and continued spoke low-toned, as if fearing eavesdroppers. “I’ve been seeing things that remain in my mind’s eye during the day. I dream of distant places that I’ve never seen, Clare, places in the earth that God’s forsaken. There’s a white tower in one nightmare, surrounded by snow, and a creature who is half-woman and half-corpse. She sits on a throne, holding court in a hall of dead men, ”

  “Incubi, Padre? Nightmares?” Clarinda was speechless. Her father was having visions, too? This seemed a strange coincidence, even if the imagery he described seemed vastly different from her vision of the pool and handsome knight!

  She blushed then, leaving unspoken the details of her dream, thankful that the moonlight didn’t reveal her attraction to the striking young man who always sprang into the fire-lit pool with sword drawn at an unseen enemy. “If you need help sleeping, perhaps there’s an apothecary in Constantinople who can concoct a potion for you.”

  “No, no...I think I just need to be rid of these chests. They’re bothersome and unnatural. But, let me finish telling you of the dreams. I feel I must tell you. Other times the dreams are filled with fire. Smoke billowing into the sky, the lands blackened and scorched by flames that never die. Even the sea itself is blazing….” Angelo stopped, passion making his voice hoarse.

  “Padre, what is it?” Clarinda didn’t understand the nature of the problem, but she’d never seen her father this close to tears.

  Angelo took a deep breath and finished his sentence: “I tell you this, Clarinda, because I’ve seen you in some of these visions, both in the fire world, but at another time, with many women at your mother’s shop on Murano Island.”

  “Then that’s a good thing, Padre, a memory of better times when Madre worked there —”

  “No, no, no. It’s not a memory of her working with the hired hands. These women are different, cloaked and...there’s a cauldron where the furnace should be. I enter the house, excited that she’s alive again, but...when I peer closer — whey I try to see your mother again — the women turn into witches, Clarinda! Witches! E... e...Verrocchio is there. My own brother, and he’s trying to break through the back door with cloaked men behind him. They are strange men, who seem more shadow creatures than anything of this world. He…my brother turns into a monster as he bursts through the door, a twisted thing, with long fangs and eyes that burn fire, and you…” he paused again, staring at her in the half-light as if trying to verify something. “You, Clarinda,” he resumed, “you stand in front of the witches against him, and then there’s a battle, a great silver light, and winged creatures that come from the sky. I try to run, but the water of the lagoon around your mother’s isle turns into glass, its surface so like ice that I slip and fall, then…,” he shrugged, made a popping sound as he flashed his palms at her, and finished by saying, “Poof! I’m awake and sweating like a child.”

  He tried to smile, but failed, shaking his head as he looked again to the sea. “Simple wooden chests with a mundane cargo, and I’m driven to nightmares. Driven to thoughts of trying to join your mother.”

  “Padre !”

  “Don’t fear, Clarinda. The thought passes almost as quickly as it enters my mind, but it’s there. I’ve never before, not for one moment, considered taking my own life, but when I rest my hand upon those chests, there it is, the thought that you and the world would be better off without me. Sometimes, it seems as if the only way to avoid those places is...to go beyond.”

  “Stop this, Padre. I’ll not hear of suicide! We’re all we’ve got with Madre gone. You scare me with such talk.”

  “I myself am scared, Clarinda, which is why I’ll do what I must at landfall tomorrow.”

  “You’re not going to ….”

  Angelo smiled with sadness in his eyes, and with one hand he gently moved a long strand of hair that had blown across her face.

  “No, Clarinda, not that. We’re going to be rid of this cargo soon, but until we are, I want you someplace safe. I think, rather than have you sail anywhere near the Holy Land, you’ll visit Genie and her family.”

  “What? No!” Clarinda exclaimed. Genevieve Stratioticus had been a friend from her youth, when she first visited Constantinople at age seven. “It’s been at least a year since we saw them. Besides, I’m needed here. We’ve got a plan, remember? I’ll take the Viator when we leave Constantinople. Even before then, I can’t go shopping in the bazaars with Genie like I’ve no care in the world. Those caskets aside, we’ve full cargos to unload and new ones to lade. Then we’ve got to negotiate transports, sign the last contracts for the ove
rland shipping through Rus lands… no. No, Father, I don’t have time for this – it’d be like house arrest!”

  “Don’t try to use your mother’s voice on me,” Angelo said firmly. “You’ll do as I say, partly because I’m your father, but mostly because I’m captain of our little fleet. E, ho una sensazione. I’ve got a strange feeling about this matter, Bambina, but be assured: Pasquale will take care of things — thanks to a lead from Verrocchio, we’re using a man named Kenezki as broker for the Rus goods.”

  “I don’t like this, Padre.” Clarinda said, sensing much unspoken here. “Let me stay aft, watch the crew unload while you do all this. There’s no reason to send me away.”

  Angelo opened his arms widely as he invited her to hug him.

  “If I’m wrong, and there’s no reason to do all this, then you’ll be back from the Stratioticus household even sooner.” He held Clarinda tightly as he spoke, then pushed her gently to arm’s length, holding her shoulders. “I do this as much for the ship and crew as for your safety. The men respect you and know that you’ll take over if something happens to me. I need to trust my feelings. Something about Evremar’s agent felt… wrong.”

  “Morpeth?” Clarinda recalled, never forgetting anyone’s name that could be a threat to her father or the family enterprise. “He was a Templar, wasn’t he?”

  “No. Well, perhaps. When I saw him, he definitely was Frankish, with chain-mail armor under dark vermilion robes.”

  “Vermiglio ? That’s a papal color. What does the pope have to do with this? Is it those letters of exchange?” When he said nothing, she continued, hoping that some humor might distract him into revealing anything that might help her understand his thoughts. “More to the point, what’s a man doing wearing chain-mail in a Venetian summer? Please. Obviously he didn’t plan to stay long – the merchant league would’ve run him out for bad taste in clothes. They’re losing enough money to the new Templar banks as it is.”